Beatrice Mac Neil

Beatrice Mac Neil is a full-time writer of Scottish and Acadian descent who was born in Glace Bay, Cape Breton Island. She lives in East Bay on the Island, near the Bra D'Or Lake.

Mac Neil is the founder of the Reading Céilidhs (An Evening of Fiddles and Prose) held in Cape Breton. She has hosted forty or more Reading Céilidhs to date - last summer's Céilidh was held in Mabou, Nova Scotia, and aired on The National on CBC.

She has written ten plays, several which have won awards. Two of her plays, Company D and French Song, were adapted by CBC Radio, Halifax.

The Cat That Ate the Moon, a children's book, was published in 2001 by Sea Cape Publishing. Other works have also been published in the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the Halifax Herald, magazines in Canada and the United States, as well as three anthologies.

Mac Neil is presently working on her new novel, Where White Horses Gallop, which will be published in the fall of 2007 by Key Porter Books (Toronto).

Awards

Butterflies Dance in the Dark – won the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction (2003)
The Tic Butler Award (1999) for outstanding contribution to Cape Breton writing and culture
There is a Mouse in the House of Miss Crouse – received the 1996 Marianna Dempster Award (Canadian Authors Association – Nova Scotia)
The Moonlight Skater (a collection of short stories) – won the Dartmouth Book Award (1994)
The Dream (play) – won the Original Script Award from the University College of Cape Breton in 1985

Publications

Where White Horses Gallop: A Novel, Key Porter Books (Sep 2007).
ISBN: 978-1552639153

Moonlight Skater, Breton Books (2006).
ISBN: 978-1895415773

Butterflies Dance in the Dark: A Novel, Key Porter Books (2002).
ISBN: 978-1552634745

A Mouse in the House of Miss Crouse, Stoddart Pub (1996).
ISBN: 978-1896792019

You can send mail to Beatrice Mac Neil
c/o Writers' Federation of Nova Scotia